Last year, my dad gave me a Christmas Cactus. It started out as a single unit that had broken off the main plant. I can’t find a good picture of just the original piece, so here it is about a month after I got it:

Isn’t it cute?! For reference, the main piece is about 3/4″ tall and it is now sporting the first of many “hats” it would sprout (I don’t know what the proper term is for those new segments, but I refer to them affectionately as “hats”). It’s since grown many more segments, and has a good half dozen branches, but I thought it would still be a few years before it started blooming. However, when I went to water it about a week and a half ago, I found this:

My Christmas Cactus as a flower!!! How cool is that!? I decided to track its growth over the next few days/weeks (I wasn’t sure how quickly it would grow). Here is it 5 days later:

It didn’t really do too much over the inbetween days, but it finally started to open. Once is started to open, things progressed rather quickly. Here it is just a day later:

I like how the cactus and its flower are transilluminated by the sun! Here’s another angle on the opening flower:

Just a day later, it had opened up even more!

How amazing is that?! It was just a bud a week ago- now it’s a fully fledged flower!

This is quite possibly one of my favorite pictures to date of all the photos I’ve taken:

I’m so glad my cactus bloomed this year! I found this little pink bump on the end of one of the other branches, so maybe it’ll put out another flower again this year? I hope so!

P.S. I’ve started an account at 500px (http://500px.com/Rebecca_Lynn), where I’ve started uploading some of my better shots (including my new favorite picture!). There you can see my pictures in their original, non-compressed glory and can download or purchase prints, if you would like.